The core stage for NASA’s first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket was hoisted into a vertical test stand in January at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Credit: NASA
NASA announced Thursday that work on the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and Orion crew capsule at facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi is being halted due to the spreading coronavirus pandemic, a stoppage that could force further delays on the already behind-schedule and over-budget programs.
Meanwhile, NASA officials said Thursday they are making plans to try and keep the agency’s next Mars rover and the multibillion-dollar James Webb Space Telescope on schedule for launches in later this year and in 2021.
NASA has elevated the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and the Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana to Stage 4 of the agency’s Response Framework, forcing the closure of both sites to nearly all employees, effective Friday.
At Stennis, NASA and Boeing teams were readying the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System for a series of critical tests in the coming months, culminating in a test-firing of the rocket’s four main engines that had been scheduled for early August. With the shutdown of Stennis, that testing will be delayed.
SLS core stages are manufactured at the Michoud plant in New Orleans, and pressure vessels of Orion crew capsules are welded there. The SLS and Orion vehicles are the centerpieces of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts at the moon’s south pole before the end of 2024, a goal that was already widely considered ambitious.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said a Stennis employee has tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus.
“The change at Stennis was made due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the community around the center, the number of self-isolation cases within our workforce there, and one confirmed case among our Stennis team,” Bridenstine said in a statement. “While there are no confirmed cases at Michoud, the facility is moving to Stage 4 due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the local area, in accordance with local and federal guidelines.”
The only other NASA center elevated to Stage 4 to date is the Ames Research Center in California. All other agency facilities are at Stage 3, where only “mission-essential” personnel are allowed to work on site.
With the elevation of Stennis and Michoud to Stage 4, only employees “required to maintain the safety and security of the center” will come to work. All other staff at Stennis and Michoud will work remotely.
“Additionally, all travel is suspended,” Bridenstine said late Thursday. “These measures are being taken to help slow the transmission of COVID-19 and protect our communities.”
Bridenstine confirmed the decision to effectively shut down operations Stennis and Michoud will affect the SLS and Orion programs.
“NASA will temporarily suspend production and testing of Space Launch System and Orion hardware,” Bridenstine said. “The NASA and contractors teams will complete an orderly shutdown that puts all hardware in a safe condition until work can resume. Once this is complete, personnel allowed onsite will be limited to those needed to protect life and critical infrastructure.
“We realize there will be impacts to NASA missions, but as our teams work to analyze the full picture and reduce risks we understand that our top priority is the health and safety of the NASA workforce,” he said.
NASA’s Orion spacecraft, perched on top of its European-built service module, is pictured inside an environmental test chamber at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio. Credit: NASA
The SLS core stage currently on the test stand at Stennis is slated to lift off next year on the Artemis 1 mission, an unpiloted test flight carrying an Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit and back to Earth. Boeing, the core stage’s prime contractor, finished assembly of the 212-foot-long (65-meter) rocket structure late last year.
At the end of 2019, NASA had obligated $14.8 billion on the SLS program, with the rocket’s inaugural launch still more than a year way, the agency’s inspector general reported earlier this month.
The first SLS core stage rolled out of the Michoud factory in January and rode a NASA barge to the Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi for a series of control system checkouts, a cryogenic fueling test, and a full-duration firing of all four engines, which are leftovers from the space shuttle program.
The Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission recently completed a battery of thermal vacuum and electromagnetic tests inside a giant chamber at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio.
The Orion spacecraft, comprised of a U.S.-made crew module and a European-built service module, was scheduled to ride a NASA transport plane from Ohio to the Kennedy Space Center on March 24 to begin final preparations for liftoff next year. As of Wednesday, the spacecraft’s arrival back in Florida was still scheduled for March 24, but an update on the transport plans was not immediately available Thursday night.
Meanwhile, production of core stages for future SLS rockets is underway at Michoud. That work will be suspended now that Michoud has been elevated to Stage 4 status.
The Space Launch System and Orion are two of NASA’s largest programs.
NASA and its international partners are expected to continue operations aboard the International Space Station, which has been home to astronauts continuously since 2000. The station’s next three-man crew is scheduled for launch April 9 on a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
NASA said Wednesday that the first piloted test flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, developed with NASA funding, is scheduled for launch in mid-to-late May from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are training for the mission, which will dock with the space station.
The liftoff of the Crew Dragon spacecraft on top of a Falcon 9 rocket will be the first launch of astronauts into orbit from a U.S. spaceport since the retirement of the space shuttle in July 2011.
NASA said it would follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the agency’s chief health and medical officer for updates that may impact the Crew Dragon mission.
“I will continue to say, so none of us forget – there is no team better prepared for doing hard things,” Bridenstine said. “Take care of yourself, your family, and your NASA team.”
NASA plans to continue work on Mars rover, James Webb Space Telescope
The coronavirus pandemic could have far-reaching impacts across a range of NASA missions, but agency officials said Thursday they will attempt to insulate two of NASA’s most critical robotic science missions from delays caused by COVID-19-related closures.
Lori Glaze, head of NASA’s planetary science division, said the Perseverance rover remains on schedule for liftoff during a limited 20-day window opening July 17. If the mission — also known as Mars 2020 — misses this summer’s launch window, the next chance to send the rover to Mars won’t be until 2022, a delay that could add to the $2.5 billion mission’s price tag.
NASA’s Perseverance rover arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in February to begin final preparations for launch in July. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
“We’ve put together a framework … with which to look at each of the missions and what points we want to continue working on them,” Glaze said in a virtual town hall meeting Thursday with members of the planetary science community. “And Mars 2020 is one of only two missions within (NASA’s science directorate) that is the very highest priority … We’re going to ensure that we meet that launch window in July.
“In so doing, we’re also making sure that our personnel are healthy and safe,” Glaze said. “We’re taking every precaution to make sure that those individuals that are working on Mars 2020 are going to work in conditions and have an environment where they’re able to stay safe. But we’re continuing the activities, the integration and test activities, that are going on at Kennedy Space Center.”
The Perseverance rover arrived at the Kennedy Space Center last month from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Inside a pristine, climate-controlled clean room at the Florida spaceport, the rover will be installed on its landing platform and attached to a cruise stage that will carry it from Earth to Mars.
Then the spacecraft will be enclosed within the nose cone of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and trucked to the Atlas 5’s seaside launch complex for lifting atop the vehicle. Once in place, teams will add the rover’s plutonium power generator.
Glaze said members of the Mars 2020 team from KSC, JPL, NASA Headquarters and the Department of Energy — responsible for the nuclear power source — have given their “full support” for the plan.
“As of right now, and even if we go to a next stage of alert, Mars 2020 is moving forward on schedule and everything is so far very well on track,” Glaze said. “At this point, we don’t see any impact from the current situation.”
The Perseverance rover mission is one of two high-priority projects within NASA’s science division that are pre-approved to continue work even if the agency elevates all centers to Stage 4 in the coronavirus response plan.
The other mission is the James Webb Space Telescope, according to Grey Hautaluoma, a NASA spokesperson.
The Webb telescope is currently scheduled for launch in March 2021, but officials are expected to reassess that schedule in May after recent delays in testing at the observatory’s Northrop Grumman factory in California.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
